Why I Stopped Playing Atlas

Initially I stopped playing because I was moving to another state. Getting established here took some time, but I intended to come back afterwards. However, when I started trying to play again I found I no longer had fun with the game. I've been trying to find exactly what turned me off. I think a big part of it has to do with the changes to squads and mercenaries. Previously, I liked the game because it felt like a moba to a degree. The interaction with teammates was important, the apm requirement was much lower, and the squads were built in such a way that the units let me exploit the qwer control scheme I was used to. Then mercenaries were introduced, along with additional resources to process. This pushed the game further into rts territory. However, that felt fine. It still had a similarity to mobas, but the extra options mercenaries provided along with minimal resource management felt like something I could still get my head around.

The next major revision into the unit picker lost me. Now it doesn't feel like I'm playing a squad that was designed for me, but rather that there are four races: red, green, blue, and white. Now I have to design my own squad, which requires way more investment from me. For instance, I primarily played Vex. Vex was very synergy heavy around the ignite debuff. Now, you can pick war dancers and Apocalylites, which have nothing to do with the ignite debuff. From the other side, Eris can now play with Pyrosaurs and Ignitors, but without Vex's tier 1 units the ignite debuff has almost no meaning. So I can essentially trap myself with some of these unit mechanics not working across the same race. Things like Ignite would need to be spread across the ‘race’ to ensure as few of these failed interactions exist as possible.

While these units and other aspects of moving to the unit picker can be redesigned, I think the loss of identity from these characters turns me off the most. Vex was interesting when he had multiple units just for him that reinforced him as coming from the Firelands. Now that those units are shared, I care about him less. He doesn’t feel as unique. Part of this is the mechanical oddness described above, but a bigger part of it is how much less the Hero unit feels central to the squad. Because I have more options, I’m going to pick the one that’s generically stronger most of the time and not the one that’s quirky.

The unit picker feels like an attempt to mimic deckbuilding from a card game. Deckbuilding is primarily about reducing variance in a volatile environment. Pushing your deck in a certain way to ward against drawing useless cards. It’s why drawing cards is good in almost every card game, because you get to have access to more of your options. In a card game, this feels fine because the decision about what to put in your deck is so much of the gaming experience. In an rts, and to a lesser extent a moba, this feels terrible. What I like about real time games is the opportunity to make decisions as I go. I can come in with a plan, but I can change that plan as I go along if required. The unit picker locks me out of certain options. The unit picker feels like its introducing variance for its own sake. As an analogy, imagine having to pick your 6 items from the store in LoL or DotA before the game starts. One of the best parts of that style of game is being able to have an intelligent response to the opponent. The unit picker lets you do this, but only in a limited way, and only if you think to include that option beforehand.

In summary, I no longer find the game fun. I dislike the unit picker because I don’t want to have to know the whole web of all possible unit interactions before the game starts, but rather to have the option to switch to something midgame if I need to. I dislike how much flavor the game loses when the barriers separating the squad units fall away. Lastly, I dislike how much resource management has been added into the game and how much it feels like it distracts from the battles.

Comments

Thanks for taking the time to write all of this up. Even though it hurts to hear you haven't been enjoying the recent changes, the fact that you highlighted precisely what's frustrating for you is incredibly helpful for us. We know that the final version of Atlas won't ever be something that pleases everyone. Moreover, as we're changing the design throughout development, many of our testers opinions change over time (some more positively, others more negatively). So, the fact you dislike a set of changes is not unusual.

I'm going to take some time to explain the reasoning of the decisions. Although it might not cause you to want to come back and play, I hope it will at least clarify what our intention was.

Regarding squads, the cohesive identity of a squad is cool. Squads like Vex/Alder have tightly knit mechanics that all the units can participate in. And, squads provide a nice, easy "strategy-in-a-box" for players. You can make ONE choice and your gameplay is set for the game! This was around TW1 time (December 2015). Our games had lots of battling + back-n-forth throughout. It almost felt like an action game with units!

Unfortunately, as time went on, we increasingly struggled to infuse strategic depth into the tight framework of a hero+3unit squad. Composition was, for the most part, fixed across the game. Games were decided by in-battle-micro / positioning and less with traditional RTS moves like compositional / economic choices. All of our design decisions in 2016 have been to try to create more opportunities for strategy / economic choice as we feel that's more natural for the RTS genre:
* Mercs were a way to give more unit-based choices into the game
* We played with varying economic models, eventually settling on the stock/scrap/supply model you see now. With more variance in current player army size, efficiency and planning around resources is much more important than in the auto-respawn-TW1 days.
* We found oddness in how mercs/squad units related to eachother and to the economy. As a result, we created deck-picking to give players access to more first class units and unite all units into the economy.
* We're rebalancing/redesigning units to fit better into the deck-picking world. In squad world, we needed more "swiss-army-knife" unit designs since toolsets were limited for players. Now, we can have units be more specialized.

So, although you might not enjoy Atlas because squads went away (killing qwer + some identity), we believe that long term, there will be more strategic depth, more variance in gameplay, and more options for players. Had we stayed with TW1 style design, we believe a large bulk of players would have enjoyed their first 20 games and then quickly become bored.

Hopefully our design will tune up so that, in a month or two, you'll want to come back and play!! Either way, it's been a real pleasure having you help us playtest. It always brought me joy to hear you laugh maniacally when your hornet mines killed units. Hope to hear it again soon .

We played with varying economic models, eventually settling on the stock/scrap/supply model you see now. With more variance in current player army size, efficiency and planning around resources is much more important than in the auto-respawn-TW1 days.

As a player who joined the 4th week I know I am reviving an old post but I think this has some merit. You're current economy is currently farm aka minerals, scrap, aka gas and food aka food. You have re-made sc2's economy. Scap is even colored the same as vespene gas, you need scrap to tech. There are so many parallels. With the introduction of choosing army you have lessened Atlas' ability to distinguish itself from Wc3 or sc2 with heroes. The main difference being that all your production comes from one building, very a la zerg mind you, and you warp in units to pylons, very a la toss.

At this point in time, and I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm trying to ask an honest question, why couldn't your game be a custom map for sc2? What are you providing to me the player, that blizzard doesn't already provide?

I had hoped that Atlas would be new and refreshing, instead it's... just flat. The hero design in league is better and more robust, the army composition in sc2 is better and pathing / collision / balance / pings / resource information / stats on untis / stats on enemys is better in either game.

Atlas was going to be something new and refreshing, instead you've changed it to be a weird mix of both moba / sc2 without stealing the benefits of either.

I have great faith in this team. I've spoken with some of you and followed the blog and dev posts for a while.

Hey Wicked! I am not on the Artillery team, but I wanted to jump in and give my two cents. I think the resource system is different from traditional RTS games like SC2 and WC3.

First of all you have stock (population? I can never remember the name of this) and supply. These are two sides of the same coin and simpler than the traditional gold/mineral resource in other RTS games. I think of stock and supply almost like a fraction. Say I have 30 supply. I could get 10 spitfires, or I could get 6 lavasplitters. Or I could get 5 spitfires and 3 lavasplitters. This is true of supply in an RTS, but instead of needing to think of both stock and mineral count, I can think of the two resources together.

Next you have scrap. While stock/supply gives you a choice on what units to get, scrap gives you the choice between higher tier units, and upgrades. I could get some trebuchets or a second attack upgrade, or maybe I'll get a charm.

Finally, you have how you collect resources. This is where Atlas is really unique (and awesome!). There are two ways to get resources. The first is to select which resource you would like to get more of. This is done through your base. So instead of having a mining base, and expansions, you "research" more stock, or more scrap. This is very different from other RTS games, and allows you to plan ahead for future needs. Maybe, aspects are about to pop and I want to supplement my scrap to get some tier 3 units. In this case I'll queue up some scrap. Maybe I am low on stock and I know I am going to take an unfavorable engagement to prevent the enemy team from getting an juggernaut. I'll queue up some stock. The second way to get resources is to collect gems and crystals from the neutral camps and aspects. I believe this achieves two goals. It supplements the fact that there are no expansions, and it forces engagements. This is one thing that traditional RTS games have a problem with. In many RTS games, you sit in your base until you have the army you want, then you move out. In Atlas, there are tons of army engagements. You start the game fighting (getting neutral camps), then the aspects spawn, and you are fighting again. By the time the aspects have been captured, the neutral camps are back and you are fighting again! It keeps the game fast paced with lots of action, and lots of excuses to engage armies.

Overall, there are certainly some familiar aspects to the resource system. Its an RTS, it can't be completely foreign! But I feel like Artillery has added a nice twist to the traditional RTS economy system. I think this economy system has more strategic depth, and encourages more skirmishes than most RTS games.

I think the resource system is different from traditional RTS games like SC2 and WC3.

The three resources are Stock/Scrap/Supply. Stock works like minerals, scrap works like gas, supply is supply. This is exactly the same as SC2. The only difference is the way you collect it.

This is very different from other RTS games, and allows you to plan ahead for future needs. Maybe, aspects are about to pop and I want to supplement my scrap to get some tier 3 units. In this case I'll queue up some scrap. Maybe I am low on stock and I know I am going to take an unfavorable engagement to prevent the enemy team from getting an juggernaut. I'll queue up some stock.

This is the SAME as Sc2 also, its all about where you place your workers. Anticipate teching? 3 in gas on all geysers. Not gonna tech for a while, Mins all day baby. Your opponent isnt building an army, better expo.

. The second way to get resources is to collect gems and crystals from the neutral camps and aspects. I believe this achieves two goals. It supplements the fact that there are no expansions, and it forces engagements

This is true, you also get EXP from killing camps, which is wc3ft. Except it's not because your hero only has 2 skills. I don't think the system is unique at all. Atlas was supposed to be a squad based game that relied on micro...

Unfortunately, as time went on, we increasingly struggled to infuse strategic depth into the tight framework of a hero+3unit squad. - DAY9

Just because they struggled with it, doesn't make it a bad idea. It makes it hard.

Very many RTS games have multiple resource counts and a population count. Just because Atlas does as well doesn't make the game inherently flawed. Originality isn't what makes a game great, it's execution.

While you can make many games in a SC2 Customer map, they custom map versions will not be better then the game they are based off of. You can spend the time to recreate Warcraft 3 in SC2 Custom, or even a DooM, but it won't be as good as Warcraft 3 or Doom played in their native environment and client.

Atlas is still in development and as anyone that has played in multiple playtests can attest to it has changed dramatically and will probably continue to do so in the future. For those reasons, I don't think it's fair to discount Atlas based on the economic system it has chosen to use at this time.

There are however two things that Wicked and Lef mentioned that also strike home for me.
"Now it doesn't feel like I'm playing a squad that was designed for me, but rather that there are four races: red, green, blue, and white."
"Atlas was supposed to be a squad based game that relied on micro..."

I understand the some of the benefits that come with the deck picker, but I think it also comes with some negatives that may not have been mentioned specifically before. What I really enjoyed about Atlas in the past were the squads. They made me feel immersed, they all had a specific role they could fulfill and a specific feel. The difference in the squads and how they felt was something I feel was lost when the deck picker was introduced. A parallel I can draw is in league. You have your champion, and you have the abilities that they can cast, I pictured squads as the champion with the squad units being the "abilities" of the champion. With the deckpicker, you no longer have set abilities or squad units, you have a bunch of abilities that you can choose from. I think you can imagine that the theme of the character/squad can get muddied when you start mixing around what their "core" structure is.

This leaves us with a question of what to do when you are in a matchup that is unfavorable. In League, there are many champions that are at an initial disadvantage when they are put up against each other. They solved that problem by allowing champions to get "items" which augment the champion's "core" without changing his abilities and what makes the champion what he started out as. I think mercenaries and charms in their earlier state were on the right track with doing this as well. If your Hero's abilities are your units, ADDITIONAL units, and altering your units would be a good way to change your situation in the game without losing the core theme of the Hero.

Unfortunately, as time went on, we increasingly struggled to infuse strategic depth into the tight framework of a hero+3unit squad. - DAY9

@Day9 Can you please elaborate on this a little more? I don't understand this statement. There are many games that are just a hero, (Most traditional MOBAS) surely with a hero and 3 squad units it should be possible. What are the difficulties that make it hard to infuse strategic depth to a hero and 3 squad units?

Dude I have no desire to discount atlas. But you don't get anywhere if I only talk about the positives. Right now, there's just, not a lot of positives.... I wanted squad based micro and got wc3 with controls from the same time period.

The Devs are clearly passionate about this and I hope that will shine through.

The biggest thing for me is overall, it's a fun game to play or I wouldn't be here.

hmm, I have just joined the beta for test weekend 4 and I love the deck picker system. I think it opens up a world of unique possibilities. For example, Vex does not come with Dervishes and Apocolytes originally. But when I play I really love to use those units but I want to play those units in addition to Vex and his spitfires. If the type of units each hero got was locked you would be unable to build these unique and interesting possibilities. I LOVE the complexity that is the current version of the deck builder, the amount of possible synergies and unit choices is immense. Taking away this complexity and options would be, in my opinion, a huge mistake and a step backwards. Perhaps as a solution to new players being confused on the amount of options I would suggest that the preselected unit comps are highlighted in some way, so new players realize.when they change out cards they may be creating a weaker synergy(Maybe a warning message or something?).

Just in case the devs are getting the idea that everyone is fundamentally against the deck builder concept Atlas currently functions with: that is not the case.

I agree with the earlier assertion (made by Day9) that squads fundamentally limit the complexity of the meta and long term strategy possible in this game. I play primarily white and I switch off between Vela and Celesta depending on my mood. For example, I like Celesta + Deadeye + Wisp + Conduit (and sentinels obviously)--it allows me to be a poor man's hit and run if that's what the situation calls for and more of a straight-fight outfit if that's what I feel is called for. Sometimes I like going with pure hit and run with Vela + Raptor + Deadeye + Windray. And there are more play styles, just within white. I can go for a combo of general unit upgrades + wisps + conduits + that heal item if I want more of a high dps straight up fight build, or Celesta/Vela + Purifier + Deadeye space control build. That's depth. Even if some of the units (Deadeye right now) are more of an always-include, there are still a lot of different strategies I can go for with just one color.

I started playing in TW3 and enjoyed the hell out of the squad system, but after playing with the deck builder style I desperately do not want to go back.

As for the resources and their similarity to SC....I don't feel that the interpretations I've seen here are correct.

Yeah, supply isn't an original concept. Games are fundamentally about achieving win conditions within a set of rules or limits---supply is just a good one that's fairly omnipresent in strategy games because of its utility from a game making perspective.

Stock is there primarily to add a sting to losing battles. Without it, winning fights and losing them would have less meaning. That's it. The comparison to minerals is flawed because of minerals far expanded role in the strategy of SC. You need minerals for everything from research, to building construction, or, yes, to replacing units. You need a large and constant influx of minerals or you will lose the game regardless of your micro. You need them for everything. Stock can be virtually ignored if you husband your units and win battles. Even more important as a distinction though---stock acquisition is basically safe. You get the lion's share from research and patches which aren't likely to be touched by the enemy unless things are going very wrong already. Your stock is safe until you go into battle with your army. It's a fundamentally different mechanic with different implications that drives play in different directions.

Scrap is similar to gas in use, but the collection mechanic makes it distinct. It does decide higher tier unit construction and research, but you gain it by going out and fighting (and winning---gem tower control + destroying enemy buildings are how you really gain a scrap advantage over your enemy vs. expanding quickly and protecting them.)

It seems to me like the game's resources are won and lost as an direct result of battles rather than an indirect result like in SC. If you win a fight in SC, you might be in a good position to expand and gain more min/gas, in Atlas, if you win a battle, you're probably already gaining both. The resources in this game force a faster-paced game, so while they might have some superficial similarity in utility, they don't guide play style in the same way.

@CraftyApe This is right on. I think the resource system and deckbuilder system, while maybe not perfect and polished yet, are the way to go in terms of adding and fostering strategic depth to the game.

@Hazard has a good point too though, that it seems strategic depth could be added without a deckbuilder. Units could be upgraded in interesting ways over the course of the game.

FWIW, as far as I see it, with the deckbuilder system the game strategically feels more like an RTS than a MOBA. Namely, the strategy has a lot to do with how resources are apportioned and how you choose your army composition. With @Hazard's suggestion, the game would strategically feel a lot more like a MOBA. Sure, it would still have more RTS-style combat, but the strategy would be more along the lines of "which of several possible upgrades would be the most helpful for me in this particular situation", while you would be more-locked-in to an overall strategy after picking a hero, much like most heroes have a fairly well-defined role (or two) in a MOBA. To me, it's the strategy elements that really define how a game "feels", and these two options (deckbuilder or preset squads) would make the difference between RTS-feeling and MOBA-feeling. I'm not saying either of these is better, just an observation. I also think the devs' vision for the game is more along the lines of RTS and deckbuilder than MOBA and squads.

All this said, I'm new as of TW4 so I never played the old system, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.

@Wicked said:
At this point in time, and I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm trying to ask an honest question, why couldn't your game be a custom map for sc2? What are you providing to me the player, that blizzard doesn't already provide?

It's already been discussed above in a slightly different light, but, I don't understand the point this is supposed to make. Is it that it's not original enough? Is it that it's not fun enough?

Take, for example, League which you mentioned. It was originally DotA, a custom map for War3. Clearly this was popular enough and unique enough to spawn not only basically a new sub-genre of gaming, but jump ahead to be the best thereof. It's now insanely popular and I don't think anyone would say that it's similar to War3.

Just because a game COULD be designed within another game's engine doesn't mean that it wouldn't be (or isn't!) an utterly fantastic game on its own. League ended up being both original and fun despite its roots being a custom map for another game. If I'm missing the point by going down this rabbit hole, I apologize.

I also agree with @CraftyApe on the differences in resources. I won't rehash what he said b/c it was already well covered.

I apologize for the nearly month-old necro, but I feel it is important to back CraftyApe and say that I do like the Deck Picker more than the squad system despite ALSO liking the squad format. When I was playing around the TW3 timeframe, I noticed that the distribution of "fairness" of squads against one another in terms of unit matchups at particular points in the game was extremely varied.

I feel that the Deck Picker is the most appropriate mix of mercenaries and core squad units that I have played to date. I don't want to push myself into a corner by saying it's the best choice, as I thought the Hero +3 units squad was best before the Deck Picker came out... take it as faith that the team is constantly failing towards a more perfect game!